Though the two sides did not emerge from Wednesday’s 12-hour meeting with a deal in hand, they did agree to meet again on Thursday, which means we’re in the same position now that we were in once the union wrapped up its meeting of player representatives on Tuesday night: The economic split is all but settled with some form of a 50-50 split in the offing, but the union is still waiting for the league to give enough ground on salary system issues to be able to put a proposal before its players for a vote.

Entering the day, chief negotiators on both sides—union executive director Billy Hunter and commissioner David Stern—were confident that a deal was within reach, and that the two sides had an understanding of how much movement would be required to finish this process.

But once at the table, of course, finding just the right compromise has proven difficult.

“We have never actually said, ‘Here’s 50-50 (on BRI) and now give us the entire system,” union president Derek Fisher said. “We feel if we continue to make economic concessions on the BRI split, in exchange for that, there should be more flexibility from the NBA and the league on the systems. That continues to be our belief.”

There are some core issues separating the owners and players on the system end of things, most of which involve the luxury tax—the ability of taxpayers to conduct sign-and-trade deals; the availability of midlevel exceptions to taxpayers; the size and length of the MLE for taxpayers; how much taxpayers should be charged for going over the tax in multiple years; and the so-called, “cliff,” that helps determine tax payments to teams.

There are issues beyond those that still need to be worked out, and that complicates the process.

There was progress on most of the issues discussed, with the status of sign-and-trades for taxpayers being one of the major sticking points. The league wants to do away with them altogether, insisting that allowing taxpayers to bring in top-tier talent is a major obstacle to competitive balance.

The union wants to preserve them as a way to guarantee that players have a means to get to big-spending teams in free agency. There are ways to compromise on just about every other issue—and there was compromise on most. But there is no room for compromise on the sign-and-trade problem, though, and that’s why it has proven to be so thorny.

Still, put into context, the NBA and the union are tantalizingly close to a deal—and it is up to the owners to suck it up and make the final concessions, even if that means allowing taxpayer sign-and-trades.

The reality is, there have not been many such transactions over the years, and though the league insists that the economic split is a separate issue from the system issues, there is no way the owners can ignore the fact that players are coming down from a 57 percent economic split to a 50 percent split.

That would mean a concession of about $2 billion over 10 years if there were zero growth in the game, and well over $3 billion if there is normal growth.

There is no question that Stern and Hunter know the time for a deal has come.

The NBA has issued its ultimatum, threatening players with a contract rollback and a reduction in its offer on BRI to 47 percent if a deal can’t be worked out by the end of this negotiating session.

Stern is in the position of needing to give the union enough to allow Hunter to go back to his players and claim victory, while being able to give labor committee chairman Peter Holt enough of a deal to keep at least 16 owners on board.

Already, the month of November has been lost from the schedule, and more cancellations are likely on the way if nothing gets done Thursday.

“Every day that we lose another game, it just enhances the case to make a deal and causes both sides to recognize the damage,” Stern said. “We’re here. The clock is stopped and we’re trying to see if there is a reason why we can get something to go back to our respective sides with.”

For Stern, it’s a fine line. And it’s one that the league’s owners need to recognize, and offer him enough leeway to make it happen.